Auds at Barking Mad sent me an e-mail saying “Come do this dinner party thing.” Or something along those lines. She was very persuasive. What really sold me was when she wrote
“Most of you I’ve emailed are among women who are highly coveted wannabee invitees.”
Ah. Well, it’s true. I am easily confused with a woman, I suppose. I have made no apologies for calling myself a “mommy-blogger”. I hang out with more women than men. I have watched “Ellen”. Also, I’m very pretty: so say all of my male friends who really just need to come out of the closet already.
Speaking of coming out, although I jokingly refer to my feelings for Ryan Reynolds and Freddie Prinze Jr. as “man crushes” they might be something more. Hey, Ryan, call me dude. We can go hang out at Freddie’s house and play pool. Nothing naked, man. Just some guys, bonding. In a totally manly way.
Uh…where was I?
Oh, right. So, Auds, even though she made the entirely forgivable mistake of overlooking my completely masculine facial hair, has asked me to participate in her Dinner Party: A challenge to list ten bloggers who I’d like to have dinner with.
Well, I’m feeling in need of a little male companionship after Auds’ e-mail, so I think I’m going to make this a Dads-only Dinner Party. Nothing naked, guys. Just some men, bonding. In a totally manly way. We’d grill up some steaks, or maybe some goat cheese and cranberry stuffed chicken breasts, crack open some beers, and watch a hockey game at the man spa.
So, who to invite?
Well, there’s Laid Off Dad. We met in the manliest of all places, the handbag section of a Macy’s. He is a supremely cool guy and he just moved into a new place, so maybe he’d agree to let me throw this party at his place instead of in my tiny apartment filled with baby toys and cat vomit.
And my skeptical friend Tick Tock, who looks at all the crazy in the world and just says “Here are all the reasons you are crazy.” And then he sits back and waits for the crapstorm from his wife over what he just said about Chinese medicine.
Will, from Gaming With Baby gets an invite because my cooking has not been nearly up to snuff lately and I know he’d take one look at my sorry-ass menu and just roll up his sleeves and whip up something much better. Plus, I really want to bust out my old Nintendo and see if there is anyone out there who can wail at Punch-Out like I can.
Kevin, a dad in New England who is funny as hell and isn’t afraid to let the world know how much his kids hate brown people. Most brown people. Not all of them. His kids are rational like that. He’d come over and I’d help him draw Venn diagrams to give to his kids so that they could be very clear about which brown people they hate. Because if there’s one thing I hate about racist kids, it’s racist kids who make broad generalizations.
Jeremy Adam Smith needs to come over because there needs to be a grown-up in the group. This guy is smart, responsible, inspiring, and a hard-working feminist and dadvocate. Usually that combination of voices is absent from conversations, and I respect the hell out of what he does and the passion with which he does it. Plus, he also rocks some mad facial hair, so we could totally have a pose-off.
Chag, my cynical friend, is the best Twitter VJ I’ve ever seen. If there is going to be any life at this party, it will come from him. His taste in music is impeccable, even if his taste in sports is incomprehensible. Seriously, dude: Let’s watch some hockey.
Graham, one of my Bay Area brothers-in-diapers, is just about as lax in care with his daughter as I am with mine. Apart from being a fantastic writer and great role model (except for the whole flipping his daughter upside down on the swings, thing) he also looks like Hugh Grant. I don’t have man-crush on Hugh Grant, but it would be nice to have someone at the party who we can throw to the ladies peeking in the windows wondering what we’re doing in there behind our “No Girls Allowed” sign.
Mike, another of my Bay Area brothers-in-diapers, needs to come and just put on a writing workshop. He always writes pure gold, and all of us would be better people if we could express ourselves as he does. There would be no confusion in the world, and we would all want to have daughters and show them how great raising a child in the city can be.
SciFi Dad can bring some much needed geekiness to the party. Not that I don’t carry enough of that around on my own, but while Will is busy crying that I pwned him at Punch Out I’ll need someone to argue with over eternal, burning questions like “Kirk vs. Jean-Luc”, “Zombies vs. Vampires”, and “V vs. Battlestar Galactica (the original series)”. I’ll say “Jean-Luc”, “Zombies” and “BSG”. Also, he’s a huge Red Wings fan, and even though he kept jinxing them throughout the playoffs they were strong enough to overcome his very powerful jinx and win the Cup anyway, so I don’t hold any grudges.
And finally, there is the always cool, always smart, always witty, Whit. I will freely admit that I spend too much energy worrying about what the hell happens in Hollywood, but I have nothing on this guy. Plus, he has time for things like, oh, parenting, and writing a screenplay, and striking poses in tuxedos.
So, there you have my Dinner Party guest list. Of course there are people who aren’t on the list who should be. I thought about cheating and adding a couple of more, but, well, then I thought “How about no? How about not adding your entire freaking blogroll to the list?”
Ten it is.
Go, read some dad blogs. I’ll be here eating some red meat and pissing on things. Today, for one day only, I am not a mommy-blogger. Your regularly scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.
(Editor’s Note: I said originally that Kevin lives in So-Cal. That is completely wrong. It would be tough to find a place further away from So-Cal that is also still within the contiguous States that he could live. Not impossible, but tough.)